Steel Blue Continental S1

Robert Tongue · Joined: 27 Feb 2009 Posts: 5 Location: Algarve Portugal

I Am considering painting my 56 Continental S1 Coupe Steel Blue. The only Bentley I have seen in a few photos is U001 a 1959 S1 Continental dhc does anyone in the club own a steel blue car ? I would love to see a car in person or have more images ? My only other choice is a RR non period colour which im happy to do as that is the only colour I have seen in the flesh which interests me, but I think I would prefer a period colour .

Christopher Carnley · Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2017 2:40 pm Post subject:

Steel blue has many hues, one makes a car look like a space, and one makes a car "invisible " on a dull day.

Stephen Blakey · Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2017 4:30 pm Post subject:

I'm a great fan of RAL colours as you can get all your coatings mixed to the same colour and you're not tied in to one manufacturer's interpretation of some long fogotten shade. Puts the designer in control and I like that.

Anyway, RAL 5011 Steel Blue is quite dark;

I've got pots of 5011 and 5013 (Cobalt Blue) Lechler two pack for my special and am still to chose between them.

John Cobbing's old R Type Continental will be dark blue, as all his cars were, however the chances of you getting a look at that are pretty slim.

Do let us know how you get on.

Stephen

Robert Tongue · Joined: 27 Feb 2009 Posts: 5 Location: Algarve Portugal

Robert Tongue · Joined: 27 Feb 2009 Posts: 5 Location: Algarve Portugal

Stephen Blakey · Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2017 4:58 pm Post subject:

Now I'm confused as the only colour chip I could find for 9500436 is here and it looks rather dark to me;

http://www.automotivetouchup.com/touch-up-paint/rolls-royce/1967/all-models/

Anyway, I've given up with proprietary colours so what do I know?

Christopher Carnley · Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2017 5:57 pm Post subject:

Bentley S1 Continental, Park Ward, Chassis BC29FM. Reg UOO1

More like the second from left in the stripe chart.

Beyonce has an R-R Silver Cloud, DHC in a similar colour.

Nice cars, and I am a little envious, but I shall have to make do with a new Tiguan.

I keep encountering a posting debug message.

Robert Tongue · Joined: 27 Feb 2009 Posts: 5 Location: Algarve Portugal

Christopher Carnley · Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2017 6:31 pm Post subject:

Jonathan Elstein · Joined: 27 Jul 2015 Posts: 17

On the subject of blue, does anyone have a good source of information about Rolls-Royce 1950s paint codes? I'm repainting a 1953 Silver Wraith (by Hooper) and want to match the original colours, which you can see here:

Thanks

Jonathan

PS I know it's not a Bentley but you guys are more helpful than the RR forum!

Christopher Carnley · Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2017 1:42 pm Post subject:

The middle colour is what Rolls-Royce called Lugano blue, and very similar to
Nile Blue.
The shades change between resprays, with age and with paint type.

There were no codes as such as each supplier, ICI Belco, Masons, Valentines etc had their own charts, as did most of the "coachbuilders".

I get the impression that the dark shade is Midnight Blue, or even black.

(The "Empress Line" was a Daimler name).

Stephen Blakey · Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2017 1:47 pm Post subject:

You can download the paint codes here;

http://rrtechnical.info/miscellaneous/PaintCodes.pdf

and a lot of net searching will often get you a virtual colour chip which is better than nothing.

I've found Express Paints (in Portsmouth but mainly online) to be a good source of samplers as they will mix 100ml samples of the actual paint you're going to use which saves messing about with aerosols.

I visited a vintage workshop where the customer's idea of sampling was to have one half of the car resprayed in a colour he was considering then stripped off again once he'd seen it. Always be certain and all that.

Colour is a minefield because you need to see the results in daylight and, ideally on the whole car so I do see the sense in the above approach where funds allow.

Jonathan Elstein · Joined: 27 Jul 2015 Posts: 17

Thanks Christopher and Stephen.

I've trawled the Internet for both the ICI code and the terms 'lugano blue' and 'nile blue' but I can't find anything which looks anything like the colour of my car (by the way, the top colour is indeed black). I'll give the Portsmouth people a try, and also see if there are any London suppliers who can track down the old ICI codes.

As you say, applying new paint now will look different to the old paint currently on the car (and to previous photos). It's having a bare-metal respray so an exact match isn't critical; my priorities are (a) that it looks good (it's a massive car so there is a lot of area to cover, even if half of it is black) and (b) ideally, that it's a plausible match to the original colour.

Cheers

Jonathan